Harvill Secker holds Murakami reading event

Actor Julian Rhind-Tutt (pictured) will read the entirety of Haruki Murakami’s 88-page The Strange Library (Harvill Secker) at an event to celebrate the book’s launch.

The Strange Library will be released in English for the first time on 2nd December, and to celebrate Harvill Secker has partnered with Hackney jazz bar Brilliant Corners to host an event for fans.

As well as Rhind-Tutt’s reading – the first time the story has been heard in English – there will be a vinyl DJ playing music central to Murakami’s work. Guests will also be able to sample Japanese food, and will take home a first edition of the book with a "library card" extra, exclusive to the event.

In The Strange Library a young narrator heads to his local library on the way home from school to find out how taxes were collected in the Ottoman Empire. Led to a special reading room in a maze under the library by an old man, he finds himself imprisoned with a sheep man who makes excellent doughnuts and a girl who can talk with her hands.

The boy becomes increasingly worried about getting home in time for dinner, and about escaping from the old man, who seems to have an appetite for eating small boys’ brains.

Tickets cost £35 and can be booked online.